


Self-Commanded Allies

by nonky



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Gen, Oliver Kind (Blindspot)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 02:26:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9636731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: "There's a lot of power in this office, and I learned today I don't know everything my agents are doing."Spoilers for 2x13.





	

Oliver was nothing if not understanding. On their second of two dates, she'd been truly disappointed to have to cut it short again. He'd taken it with better humour, playfully tallying date hours he was owed. 

When Jane got the call to go into the office, she'd been expecting the summons was about Roman. Maybe he was sick or having a bad night, or perhaps he just remembered something and wanted to offer it up quickly in case it was time sensitive.

She hadn't been overly worried. She'd hopped out of Oliver's car in front of the FBI building, throwing a grin back over her shoulder as she called out a thank you. He'd made her promise to call and she'd happily - genuinely - said she would.

Jane had been congratulating herself on trying to have something of a normal life. She had a brother for family squabbles, a team of co-workers for companionship and a regular date to play skee-ball with Oliver Kind. She had a man to text when something funny happened, and his hand had taken hers without hesitating over her tattoos or pulling her into too much hastened intimacy.

She was tired of focusing on Shepherd and an emerging threat never quite on the horizon enough to see. She was tired of being frustrated her own memories weren't catching up to what she needed to know. It was counterproductive to stare at files and wonder where her foster mother fit into this conspiracy. She wanted to know, but all she knew yet was the information wasn't in her brain. 

They had Roman, and he needed to feel safe and supported when he asked for help. Jane went quickly only because she was feeling guilty about their disagreement earlier that day. She couldn't make him see clearer without also confessing her part in his struggle within his mind. She was certain Roman would find out she'd erased his memories. They were taking a risk holding back. 

Her conscience bothered her about it, but she was part of a larger whole. It might not be best for Roman to lose his one confidante before he had at least another person he was starting to trust. She had a responsibility to the team to keep Roman as a source of information.

It had to be up to Kurt. If she was going to be on his team, in the office she had to trust his guidance. Over at his apartment, she could have a beer with her friend Kurt. At work she took orders, and it fell into a natural balance of deference and compromise. She could support his position by showing all the FBI agents there she could work for him. 

She came off the elevator frowning, the high of her date smothered by her expectations. Jane wasn't ready to see Patterson wheeled along on a stretcher, her eyes shut. She looked toward Weller's office. Weller, Nas and a man she didn't recognize were inside. The man's identity was obvious as he closed a large medic's field kit and threw the strap over his shoulder before letting himself out. 

Her body went chilly with adrenaline. She didn't see anyone else who seemed hurt. If it was an attack they would have said something. She'd been through a few of those by now, and knew the protocol. They hadn't locked down the building.

It was Roman. Her brother had hurt Kurt and Patterson. Maybe he'd escaped and they wanted her in to convince him to stand down. They hadn't wanted her to panic.

Jane wanted to go right to Roman, but she had been called in; she should report to Kurt. She walked to the office and knocked briefly. Her eyes caught on the blooming swelling in his cheek and the odd way he was holding himself. 

She burst in with the certainty her brother had done something awful. "I came right here," she said. "Kurt, I'm so sorry. What did Roman do?"

Nas had started making herself absent while the team met in the last few weeks. She seemed to be trying to avoid the long meetings with Weller, and the signs of familiarity were gone. Jane hadn't been able to decide if Nas and Weller's fling tweaked her feelings or her survival instincts. It hadn't made her happy, but it did seem casual. Nas hadn't been using it for more pull on cases. The end of it signified a little less stress, though not an end to the worry the NSA had ulterior motives.

Jane had the feeling she and Nas would never be friends, but weren't exactly enemies or rivals. She wasn't surprised when the other woman smoothly nodded to Kurt and went to the door. "Kurt will fill you in, but your brother is fine. Something happened with Shepherd," she said calmly. "I'm going to check on Patterson."

In the same space as Weller, Jane slowed down. She remembered the sting of resentment she'd felt when the text came up on her phone. She'd been irritated to have to come back to work. Her face flushed and she realized he was assessing her relatively dressy clothes the same way she was taking in his rumpled, dirty clothing and the drops of blood on his shirt. 

"Are you alright," she asked breathlessly. Her hands opened at her sides and she felt them float up to her own face. 

"It's not that bad. I went back to the nursing home to talk to Sean Clarke again," he told her. "Patterson found a recording of Clarke and Mayfair on a phone call. They were talking about me. Mayfair put my name up for a promotion in D.C. Clarke said I wasn't ready and I should stay in New York, working under her. I realized he was using the baseball as code to try to tell me the same thing. But when I went back, Shepherd was waiting with a couple of her guys. They knocked me out and I woke up tied to a chair."

She'd been on a date while her mother had been kidnapping him. Jane swallowed hard and he stood up to push her toward a chair.

"Oh God, she could have killed you."

"It sounds like I'm the only one she can't kill," Kurt said mildly. He sat in the other chair and pulled it to face her instead of the empty desk. "I'm okay. She seemed convinced I'd understand her motives and eventually choose to follow her. Or maybe she was implying she had leverage so it wasn't even a choice. I was - rattled."

Jane reached out, her hand curling over his forearm to feel his body heat and reassure herself. She frowned. 

"Why is there so much blood on your clothes?"

His face collapsed as he was drawn into a memory he didn't want. "Shepherd wanted to show she was making sacrifices for her mission. Clarke was working with her, and he really was a frail old man. She stabbed him. I'm not sure the poor guy even knew where he was. He wasn't going to be able to give us much information. It was a gruesome sales pitch. Shepherd wanted me to see her dedication to her cause. She thought we had that in common."

"Kurt, that's horrible," Jane breathed. "You have to know you're nothing like Shepherd."

"I know myself, Jane," he said firmly. "I'm not like her, but it's so easy to step off the path to justice and go for vengeance. I have people who listen to what I say. I thought I was getting used to this job, but now I wonder if I'm missing things. There's a lot of power in this office, and I learned today I don't know everything my agents are doing."

She suddenly realized she'd reached out and stroked his arm without permission. Jane pulled away and sat up. Here she was taking comfort from him because her mother had murdered a man in front of him.

"I went on a date," she blurted. "I was learning skee-ball while my mother kidnapped you."

The absurdity hit her the moment she said it, and Jane flushed. "Ignore me, I don't know why I said that. It's not important."

Kurt actually laughed, his head bowing as he tried to simultaneously look at her with sympathy. "I like skee-ball," he told her, chuckling. "It's okay, Jane. You didn't know and I'm really fine. You were out with Oliver?"

She nodded, face red from a mixture of embarrassment and fury at Shepherd. The woman was a curse, spreading from Jane to everyone around her. 

"Is Oliver a gentleman?"

Jane nodded again. "He dropped me off here. Was Patterson with you at the nursing home? Did Shepherd take her as well," she asked.

Kurt's glimmer of lightness went out. "Patterson was in her lab. Tasha stopped by to get her to eat some dinner if she wasn't going to stop working. She was acting manic, too amped up and all over the place. She fainted. I don't know more than that. Nas was going to check."

He stood up, moving a little more steadily after the quick rest. Jane joined him as he headed to medical. More had happened in the last day than in all their laboured months of prising clues from the tattoos. She spotted Edgar and Tasha at the latter's desk, and tugged Weller that way to unify the team before they stormed medical. 

Patterson and Weller both needed to see people had their backs. It was unthinkable one of them would wake up in a hospital bed without a friendly face to greet them. They would be strong individually, and combine to be exponentially stronger than Shepherd's superior numbers. 

Jane would be ready for the next time her mother came after Weller. She wouldn't forget the feeling of dread when she thought about the woman who ruined her life attempting to doom her friend.


End file.
